1917 (DECEMBER) — 1918
YEARS

MEMORANDUM TO L. D. TROTSKY
May 24, 1918

Comrade Trotsky,

The bearer, Comrade Ter-Gabrielyan, is traveling to Baku with a military detachment, with money, etc. I request that you receive him outside the usual queue and make use of the detachment's journey to undertake *urgent measures of military assistance to the Baku comrades*.

Lenin

¹ S. M. Ter-Gabrielyan — one of the activists of the Baku Commune. On May 23, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued him a certificate signed by V. I. Lenin certifying that Ter-Gabrielyan was being sent to Baku to take all measures for the immediate export of oil from Baku via the Volga (see "Bolsheviks in the Struggle for the Victory of the Socialist Revolution in Azerbaijan," Baku, 1957, p. 421).
² Military assistance was dictated by the threat to Baku from the Turks. This was mentioned in all dispatches from Tiflis (see present collection, pp. 86—87).

# EXCHANGE OF MEMORANDA WITH L. D. TROTSKY

[1918, May, before the 29th]

German-Austrian troops in the Ukraine — 500,000
Purely German — 350,000

There is a treaty of Krasnov with the Germans:
1) overall strategic direction by the Germans
2) unification of the Don, Kuban, Ural, and Siberian Cossackry
3) Germany supplies weapons and instructors on the same basis as it does Ukraine

From what source is this intelligence?

"By when" is the offensive?

This is Odintsov — a general, military expert of the peace delegation, who brought it. This intelligence cost 12,045 rubles. He says he saw the text of the treaty. The Germans are not providing troops, but they are providing officers and non-commissioned officers (25 and 10 marks per day on full provisions). The offensive is apparently already considered to have begun.

1) How is this possible?
2) Is it unclear?
3) Should Chicherin not send a written note to Mirbach setting forth Mirbach's declaration that the Germans did *not* reach an agreement with Krasnov?
4) Or did this *appear* to Odintsov out of "patriotism," out of a desire to "*have a bit of a fight*"?

It seems to me that Odintsov's intelligence fully corresponds to the logic of things:
— refusal of a demarcation line on the Don, the rosy-cheeked delegation in Kiev, etc.
— Being unable to move their own forces, the Germans want to engulf us in a Cossack uprising of the Don, Kuban, Lower Volga, Urals, and Siberia.

I consider it necessary to publish this report in the press, and then communicate it by radio through Ioffe as the voice of the press.

— Is that so?? What about Ioffe³ and so forth?

One must consult with Chicherin.

Do you really not know that the Germans have refused to bind their hands with respect to the Don Republic?! This is worse than forgetting about... the Soviet Constitution.

I am sending our correspondence to Chicherin.

¹ The correspondence was apparently conducted at a session of the Council of People's Commissars on May 29, 1918, when a proclamation to the Cossacks of the Don and Kuban was being discussed in connection with negotiations of P. P. Krasnov with P. P. Skoropadsky and representatives of the German Empire. The emphases in L. D. Trotsky's responses belong to V. I. Lenin.

² S. I. Odintsov — major general of the old army. From April 1917 — commander of the 3rd Caucasian Cossack Division. In 1918 — head of the secretariat of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs.

³ A. A. Ioffe — from April to November 1918 — plenipotentiary representative of the RSFSR in Berlin.

# MEMORANDUM FROM A. A. IOFFE
31/V - 1918

Comrade Ioffe!

The bearer — Comrade Valentina Bogrova¹ — was in 1905 the secretary of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' Deputies. Please help her, I ask, to remain in Berlin for a serious operation with one of the famous doctors there. I sent you (and Zagorsky)² another little note³ today. I hope you received it.

Greetings! Your Lenin

¹ See present collection, pp. 30, 69, 75, 76.
² V. M. Zagorsky (Lubotsky) — after the October Revolution worked in the Soviet embassy in Berlin. In June 1918 he came to Moscow and was soon elected secretary of the Moscow Committee of the Party.
³ Thus in the original.